Near Silent Lian Li PC-A12 (56K Warning)

Show off your quiet rig.

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Carson89
Posts: 21
Joined: Tue Feb 26, 2008 5:05 am
Location: UK

Near Silent Lian Li PC-A12 (56K Warning)

Post by Carson89 » Tue Feb 26, 2008 5:30 am

Well, here is mine.

Internals:

AMD Athlon X2 +3800
3GB DDR PC3200
Gigabyte K8N SLI Motherboard
Leadtek WinFast PX7800GT TDH
Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic
2x 500GB Samsung SATA HDD
1 x 80 Maxtor PATA HDD
Windows XP Home
AcoustiPak Deluxe
Optiarc AD-7170S
Scythe Ninja Rev. B (With 120 mm 900 rpm 10.7dB Scythe Fan)
2x 500rpm 7dB Scythe Fan (inlet and exhaust)
Nesteq ASM 450W PSU
Hauppauge WinTV NOVA T-500

External Peripherals:
Denon UD-M30
Goldring DR-150
Wacom intuos3 SE A5 wide
Pantone Huey
20.1 Samsung SyncMaster
The rest are fairly obvious.

From 1 meter away, you have to close all the windows in the room and be dead silent to actually hear it (thats with the PSU's ASM function on), even then, its a very low pitch hum from the air exhaust fan as the air exits the case.
The DVD drive mind you, is definatley the loudest component.

Any comments greatfully received.
Last edited by Carson89 on Mon Mar 10, 2008 4:41 am, edited 8 times in total.

Carson89
Posts: 21
Joined: Tue Feb 26, 2008 5:05 am
Location: UK

Some Photos

Post by Carson89 » Tue Feb 26, 2008 5:32 am

Here are a couple of photos of my uni setup and case.

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As you may well be able to guess from the vast boxes of food, and alcohol, im a student. Lol.

Internal photos to come shortly.
Last edited by Carson89 on Tue Feb 26, 2008 6:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

Carson89
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Joined: Tue Feb 26, 2008 5:05 am
Location: UK

Internal Photos

Post by Carson89 » Tue Feb 26, 2008 6:16 am

Ok, hear are the internal photos.

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KansaKilla
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Post by KansaKilla » Wed Feb 27, 2008 10:33 am

nice pics. the cables at the bottom look like they don't impede airflow at all. if you wanted to, could you put them to the side of the drive cage to hide them?

OT: i absolutely love strongbow. used to drink it all the time back in college in atlanta here in the states. can't seem to find it now, though. closest thing is woodchuck, but it aint quite the same.

Carson89
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Location: UK

Post by Carson89 » Wed Feb 27, 2008 11:21 am

I guess so yea. there is a large bunch of extra cables that i have placed on the other side of the HD cage to keep them out of the way, but i didn't take a photo of that side.

Im a big Strongbow fan as well. Thankfull in england there seems to be no end of places that sell it.
Shame its not imported to you.

Carson89
Posts: 21
Joined: Tue Feb 26, 2008 5:05 am
Location: UK

Quick Update

Post by Carson89 » Mon Mar 10, 2008 4:17 am

A Quick Update:

Since my first post, i started to notice that i could hear the graphics card whiring away quietly in the background. At first i had to listen carefully to hear it, but now that i've got used to the quietness of the computer it began to bug me.
So, taking matters into my own hands I scowered the net and the spcr forums to find a passive cooler to fit my 7800 GT.

So here it is, my Thermalright HR-03 GT cooler all fitted.

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bonestonne
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Post by bonestonne » Mon Mar 10, 2008 11:18 am

really nice looking build, but why the Deathstar? i can't say too much, i have 2 or 3 of them lying around here.

it looks a tiny bit cramped in there, i'm just thinking that with the capabilities, maybe a PATA to SATA converter?

Carson89
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Location: UK

Post by Carson89 » Mon Mar 10, 2008 11:36 am

Cheers.
It is a little cramped, but its certainly not helped by the fact that i am yet to properly sort out the wiring in the case, which should remove most of the excess wires.

I eventually plan on completely removing the PATA HDD as the only purpose it has in the current system is to keep a backup of all my music, but since my music is nearing the point where it wont fit on it anymore, it will soon become redundant and hopefully be replaced with another 2 500Gb HDD to run in Raid Stripe and mirror (but thats a way off yet). Ideally, i'd like to completely remove and not use PATA as the cables just get in the way.

By the way, i'm a little puzzled with what you mean by the deathstar.

bonestonne
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Post by bonestonne » Mon Mar 10, 2008 1:13 pm

your PATA drive, an IBM Deskstar, referred to as a Deathstar because there were many of them plagued with vibration issues, or they were very loud.

i recognize the sticker on the back of it, as i have some.

Jipa
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Post by Jipa » Tue Mar 11, 2008 2:04 am

I'm just wondering if that Ninja really needs its own fan? I mean 3800+ shouldn't heat up that much.. I like the case, haven't seen one of those in action before.

And at first I thought you were preparing to be nuke'd or something :D The food boxed really caught my eye.

FartingBob
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Post by FartingBob » Tue Mar 11, 2008 2:59 am

Jipa wrote:I'm just wondering if that Ninja really needs its own fan? I mean 3800+ shouldn't heat up that much.. I like the case, haven't seen one of those in action before.

And at first I thought you were preparing to be nuke'd or something :D The food boxed really caught my eye.
I think now that he has a HR-03 facing his heatsink it's probably wise to have a fan on the ninja. Otherwise it would be having to passovely remove alot more air than i'd like. A 500rpm quiet fan would be all thats needed, as long as there is some air being forced though should be ok.
Like the build. Its simular to mine in specs, except i have a E6600 CPU. Reminds me that i need to improve my cabling somewhat.

Carson89
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Location: UK

Post by Carson89 » Tue Mar 11, 2008 8:44 am

Thanks for the feedback.

I dont think the HD is an IBM, its a Maxtor one i think. I can tell you though that it send a very slow (around 1Hz) on off hum through the whole case. Although you can't hear it, you can feel it when you put your hand on the case.

As for temperatures:

CPU Idle: 45-50C
CPU Load: Never really measure it, but i'd guess similar to the GPU.

GPU Idle: 45-50C
GPU Load: 60-65C

HDD: all hover around 35-40C

The system certainly doesn't get hot, but a little warm when under load. Mind you, if i don't need my computer to be silent and im doing soemthing thats placing a lot of load on the system, i manually turn on the PSU fan and set its speed to whatever i feel like, which quickly brings down the temps.

I did wonder about having a fanless ninja, ever since i decided to mount the HR-03 the way up it is, i thought it would definatley need the extra airflow.

My only gripe with the system now is that now i've got it to almost inaudiable, whenever the room goes dead silent i start to hear other bits of the pc and wonder how to silence those. I guess its going to be a never ending cycle.

Deary me, this is a long post. Nevermind ey.
I have a small ish question which i've been wondering how to do for a while. Does anyone knoe how to underclock the +3800? my board has the capabilites of overclocking but i cannot set the cpu frequency to less than 200 (multiplier i beleive is 10).


Your quite right, i do have a lot of food in the boxes, i dont like doing lots of little food shops, so i do 2-3 huge shops each term (i'd just done a shop in the first photos).

Eagle156
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Post by Eagle156 » Tue Mar 11, 2008 2:01 pm

I think your cpu fan is facing the wrong way.

Fayd
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Post by Fayd » Tue Mar 11, 2008 2:54 pm

no it isn't 0.o

Fayd
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Post by Fayd » Tue Mar 11, 2008 2:56 pm

Carson89 wrote:I dont think the HD is an IBM, its a Maxtor one i think. I can tell you though that it send a very slow (around 1Hz) on off hum through the whole case. Although you can't hear it, you can feel it when you put your hand on the case.
at that frequency, your case would be thumping, not humming.

Carson89
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Location: UK

Post by Carson89 » Tue Mar 11, 2008 3:29 pm

Fayd wrote:
Carson89 wrote:I dont think the HD is an IBM, its a Maxtor one i think. I can tell you though that it send a very slow (around 1Hz) on off hum through the whole case. Although you can't hear it, you can feel it when you put your hand on the case.
at that frequency, your case would be thumping, not humming.
Lol, thinking about it i think i may be a bit off witht he 1Hz. Its more like every 3 or 4 seconds. (i know its no way near i 1Hz, but nevermind)

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